Final Fantasy 14's Endwalker expansion entered early access on Friday, and ever since, players have been plagued with long queue times and error messages when attempting to log in. Most long-time players are familiar with launch window teething issues due to similar experiences with previous expansion launches, but no one was prepared for just how bad it would be for Endwalker, which has seen the highest level of server congestion in the game's history.
Naoki Yoshida, Final Fantasy 14's producer and director of Final Fantasy, has released several statements since early access launched to keep players updated on the latest issues. Today, Yoshida-san added a new post to announce that players would receive a week's free game time as compensation for the ongoing issues.
Any players with active service accounts who own the full game will receive seven days of free game time as compensation. Additionally, further free game time may be given in the future depending on how the server congestion issues progress.
Considering that we are asking players to wait in queues for extremely long periods of time and the ongoing situation making it difficult to play normally, we have decided that during the official release of Endwalker on December 7, we will be granting 7 days of free game time to all players who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription. This also includes players who are currently playing on the 30-day free play period included when registering the full version of the game and those with multiple accounts.
Furthermore, we may give additional free game time depending on further developments on the congestion situation. The timing at which the free game time will be provided, as well as any additional extensions, will be announced at a later time. We truly appreciate your cooperation and patience regarding the congestion situation.
Yoshida-san's post further details the current congestion situation and offers more than one apology to all players, not only for the current server issues but also in regards to the automatic logout accidentally booting players during the end credits. When players are inactive for 30 minutes, they will be logged out to allow someone else to play and relieve server strain. However, the procedure for avoiding the automatic logout when players are watching the end credits of any expansion is currently missing and the team aims to fix this in the near future. For the time being, it is recommended that players click a button during the credits to avoid being logged out.
There have also been reports of players circumventing the automatic logout by using dance emotes or striking dummies, but Yoshida-san explains in the post that these methods are not successfully bypassing the automatic logout.